Monday, March 20, 2017

Birding at White Rock Lake

After a long time went to White Rock lake for birding. The best place to see the wintering ducks :-)

I reached a little early and went for walk. The weather was really good for trail walks today. I went to Spillway area of White Rock Lake. Wanted to check the ducks and Gulls near the spillway. Since I arrived a little early there were no Gulls but I did see some Gadwall's, Blue-winged Teals, Mallards and Least Sandpipers near the spillway. I also saw lot of Coots near the spillway and a lone Spotted Sandpiper and Killdeer as well.

Blue-winged Teal

Gadwall

Spotted Sandpiper

Red Admiral

I had ebird reports about White-eyed and Blue-headed Vireos and Thrushes in the same area. So I started walking the trails. I did see lot of Yellow-Rumped Warblers, White-Throated Sparrows and Ruby-crowned Kinglets. I also saw an orange-crowned Warbler and few White-eyed Vireos in the trail. I also saw Monk Parakeets and an American Kestrel which was too close to the Monk Parakeets roosting place. You could hear their calls a lot on the trails. And in one of the ponds I saw few Wood Ducks too.

White-eyed Vireo

Wood Duck

White-Throated Sparrow

After walking the trails in Spillway area decided to try my luck with American Black Duck which was reported at Winfrey point. I started the drive on Lawther drive, I wanted to see if I can see the Rudy ducks. I always see them on this drive hence wanted to see if they were still here. After reaching the Winfrey point, at the top I saw there were lot of Yellow-Rumped Warblers, Blackbirds and Mockingbirds there. I headed towards the lake to try my luck with the Black duck. I also saw there were lot of people looking for this duck. But no one had any luck with the same. I did check the NARBA report to see when was the last sighting of this duck and it was on March 17'th. I did not have much expectations but anyways wanted to try my luck. I did not get to see the duck though.

Anyways during the walk I saw lot of Mallards, Coots and Pelicans here. There were some Ring-billed Gulls and Terns flying over the lake. I also saw few Pied Grebes, Blue-winged Teals, Northern Shovelers and long Wigeon too. There were lot of Grackles and Red-winged blackbirds too. There were some White-throated sparrows and Savannah sparrows too.

Red-winged Blackbird

Chloe Wigeon(exotic)

Pied-billed Grebe

Savannah Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

Red-eared Slider

I did walk the trail to see if I could see other birds and I did get to see lot more sparrows, Downy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker and a lone Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. After this I head back home with another satisfactory day of birding. I started late this season but it has been good couple of weeks :-)